Robot in a box: building a platform to teach robotics in schools

MEng Mechatronic and Robotic Engineering students Josh Gilmour, Reuben Mitchell and Chris Wheat created a 'Robot in a Box' system; an aid to teach robotics in schools for their third year group project. 

There’s huge potential for robots to be used in schools as practical way to teach Science Technology Engineering and Maths (STEM). However, robots can be expensive for schools to buy, hard maintain and there can be safety issues where robots have moving parts. Third year students were challenged to design a robot in a box, that found a way around many of these problems. 

The team created an integrated system where a robot could be programmed and controlled using a user-friendly computer platform - within a lockable enclosure to ensure safety.

The decided to use a systems engineering approach, looking at the cost of the parts and the value they would bring to the project. They used CAD for their design and manufactured the enclosure in the University's iForge MakerSpace.

They decided to integrate both a drone and a ground vehicle into the system and use a tether to power them. This is because lithium batteries, commonly used in portable devices, are difficult to store in schools and ensure they’re fully charged. The team also created a custom designed website and integrated all the different parts together. 

To programme the robots the group used Raspberry Pi and Arduino hardware and used Robot Operating System (ROS) to code the devices - this is software widely used in industry. 

As part of the project Josh, Reuben and Chris met with a secondary school teacher from a Sheffield High School, to ensure that the concept would meet the end user requirements.  

This is an excellent example of what our students on the MEng do for their third year group projects.